


Ain't That A Kick In The Head

by Shuggins



Series: Heartaches By The Numbers [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: 80's videogames, Angst, Anxiety, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, Kind of Sad Ending, No major relationship developments just Max feeling shitty, Not Beta Read, PTSD, brief mention of animal abuse, cat metaphors, elmax - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-18 13:35:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19335568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shuggins/pseuds/Shuggins
Summary: El waved as Hopper pulled out of the parking lot and onto the street. Once he was gone El turned to face Max, she was a bit bummed that she wouldn’t be spending as much time with Mike as she wanted to but getting to spend time alone with Max always made her giddy. Well, as alone as they could be amongst all the other people in the arcade.





	Ain't That A Kick In The Head

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the song "Ain't That A Kick In The Head" by Dean Martin
> 
> If you want a reference of what Sinistar gameplay looks like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcyBtVwAsfg
> 
> He's a lot scarier than his goofy name implies.

Max was excited, after weeks of begging, finally Hopper was going to let El go to the arcade. It was a big deal for them, Hopper kept skating around the issue because he thought a loud, busy, close-quarters place like the arcade was going to be a bit too much for her. But now he relented and Max and El were finally going to be able to go. It was just the two of them for now, the rest of the party wouldn’t be arriving until 6:30, mostly because they needed time to scrounge up quarters. But ever since El told Max that she wanted to try going to the arcade Max has been saving up quarters for weeks now. She had a hefty sum saved by now, enough for the both of them to play 15 games each and then some, as long as they were single quarter games.

When Hopper drove up to the arcade parking lot, he waved Max to come over to the car. When Max stuck her head in the open passenger window, she saw El was practically buzzing with energy, seatbelt off and her hand on the door handle. Hopper looked anxious, as he always was whenever El was seen by anyone that wasn’t in the know about her origin.

Hopper looked at Max with deadly seriousness, as if they were about to be deployed on an undercover mission. “Okay Max, you know how we do things, don’t do anything stupid, don’t attract unnecessary attention and If I’m not back by dark El goes home with Will-

“She knows! Can we go now?” El interrupted, her hand slowly pulling open the door handle.

Hopper sighed. “Fine, just remember what I said- “

Max backed up as El scrambled out the car. Once she was out, she leaned back down.

“I won’t be stupid, I love you.” El smiled and joined Max on the sidewalk. She waved as Hopper pulled out of the parking lot and onto the street. Once he was gone El turned to face Max, she was a bit bummed that she wouldn’t be spending as much time with Mike as she wanted to but getting to spend time alone with Max always made her giddy. Well as alone as they could be amongst all the other people in the arcade.

“How many quarters did you manage to get?” Max asked, she knew she was going to be sharing a lot of her quarters with El, but she was still curious about how many the other girl managed to scrounge up in that tiny cabin.

El reached her hand into her pocket and dug out a sandwich bag filled with coins. She handed it to Max and watched anxiously as the redhead poured them out onto her palm. In total there were 6 quarters, two nickels (likely mistaken for quarters) and a showbiz pizza token, for some reason. Max’s couldn’t help it as her lips pulled up into a smile when she plucked the token out of the pile.

“Yeah, this one isn’t gonna work, and these aren’t quarters.” Max said as she gave the token and the two nickels back to El and poured the remaining coins into the bag. El’s cheeks glowed as she stared at the nickels, in her rush she had mistaken them for quarters, now her total dropped to just six. She had spent an hour looking around the cabin for coins, only managing to find two in the couch, one under her bed, along with the showbiz token, three quarters and two nickels in Hopper’s coin tray that doubled as an ash tray.

“Hopper said it might work since it’s the same size…”

“I’ve tried it before, that’s how I know it doesn’t work. I accidentally jammed the coin slot for Missile Command when I put a token in it.” Max giggled as she pulled a couple of quarters out of the stash in her backpack and put them in El’s sandwich bag.

“Don’t worry, I was gonna share with you anyway.” Max said as she handed the bag back to El. El took the bag back and gave Max a shy smile. She thought Max was going to be irritated with her for having so few coins. Max’s stomach flipped a bit when El’s hand brushed her own as she took the bag back.

“So, are you ready?” Max asked as she turned towards the building, it was busy inside. At least 15 people, but not nearly as bad as it could be on a late Saturday afternoon. El nodded, as she looked up at the large rotating sign above them, she was excited to go to the place Max and the rest of the party talked about so much. So, they walked up the steps and went into the building.

It was…overwhelming at first. When El first entered she was immediately bombarded with the loud cacophony of bit-crushed music and yelling kids. The room was dimly lit, the machines themselves provided a significant source of light and bathed the walls in a multicolored glow. Max waited a bit to let El adjust until she grabbed her hand and herded her to the nearest unoccupied machine. The machine they stopped in front of was Sinistar. Max popped a quarter in and turned towards El as the game loaded the stage.

“Watch how I do it and then you try.” Max said. She turned towards the screen as she heard the game load in and didn’t notice the look of anxiety on El’s face. All this noise and close-quarters with other kids was already starting to become overstimulating for her. She glared at a boy who accidentally hit her with his shoulder as he ran past to claim an unoccupied machine, he didn’t even say sorry. She returned her attention to the screen as she remembered Max wanted her to watch.

The small white arrow was darting around, running into asteroids and shooting red arrows that were trying to destroy it. El looked at Max’s hands that were gripping the joystick and rapidly pressing the button labeled “FIRE”. El jumped as a loud bit-crushed voice pierced through the beeps and bloops of the machine.

“BEWARE! I LIVE!” the voice boomed through the speakers, suddenly a Robotic floating head appeared on the screen and began chasing the small white arrow through the field of asteroids.

“This is the really hard part; most people don’t last long once Sinistar comes out.” Max said to El as she chipped a piece off of Sinistar’s face with a “SINABOMB” according to the button on the machine. El tried to pay attention to what Max was saying but it was difficult with Sinistar’s voice nearly drowning out Max’s.

“BEWARE COWARD! RUN RUN RUN!”

El took a step back from the cabinet as Sinistar roared so loudly she almost put her hands up to her ears. She felt silly being scared of a machine, but it was really just the cherry on top of an overwhelming environment. The machines on either side of the Sinistar cabinet were at a similar volume that made it difficult to think.

Max managed to break 3 pieces off of Sinistar until she got too close and Sinistar pulled her ship into it’s maw and destroyed her. The screen went red as Sinistar laughed and goaded the player to try again. Max cursed, she usually would be able to at least blow off five pieces of Sinistar’s face before she was in real danger of losing, she guessed she still felt a bit anxious about playing in front of another person, especially since that person was El.

Ever since that night in the cabin after El’s nightmare it feels like every day Max has been falling a little bit more in love with the girl. Which wouldn’t have been that big of a deal except a) They were both girls, girls shouldn’t be having crushes on other girls. And b) They both had boyfriends. Max felt shame wash over her whenever she thought about it. She loved Lucas; she really did. Just, not in the way she thought, not like what she felt for Eleven. Sinistar’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts as the try again counter ran out.

“BEWARE! I LIVE!”

Max backed away from the machine as she gestured for El to try. El walked up to the machine and put her quarter in the slot with a shaky hand and gripped the joystick. El took two points of damage before she got a hang of the controls. After that she developed a strategy of flying in a circle and shooting wildly. She somehow managed to stay alive. Max was about to warn her that she needed to shoot the asteroids to get sinabombs so she could attack Sinistar, but as soon as she opened her mouth Sinistar appeared and destroyed El almost instantly. El turned to face Max, defeated.

Max smiled. “Don’t worry about it Sinistar is super hard anyway, even I can’t beat it.”

She looked around for a game that could be more El’s speed. Pong was open so she brought El over to play that instead, with similar results to Sinistar. El missed both times and lost immediately, that ended up being the running theme of the evening. Max would play as well as she could with El watching, let El try, only to watch her fail within seconds. From Frogger, Donkey Kong, Galaga, Q*bert, Robotron, Duck Hunt and Dragon’s Lair. It all ended with Max being annoyed at herself for not playing as good as she usually does and El being frustrated that she can’t even play for more than 30 seconds without getting a game over. The flashing colors and intense noises definitely weren’t helping with her concentration.  
After El lost at Dig Dug for the third time the cabinet and the two on either side of it tremored slightly and the screens flickered briefly before turning off entirely. Max eyed the other girl warily, El’s face turned tomato red with mortification as she hastily wiped away the blood dribbling from her nose. She had just accidentally taken out the machines in a fit of frustration. The two girls quickly walked off when the older teenager who was working there shooed them away as he cursed under his breath about shitty wiring.

 

After that it seemed like a good time to break for dinner and El tried to mask her relief as they stepped out into the late afternoon sun. The two girls walked over to the diner down the street and stepped inside. The diner was small, only 6 red booths and a small bar in front of the kitchen. As El and Max walked in the smell of fatty burgers and fries made El’s heart hurt, it reminded her of Benny and his diner. As they sat down at a booth a waitress came up to them and handed them their menus and some glasses of water. El looked at the menu, she understood most of the text, but a lot of words still escaped her. Like caramelized and sautéed, the mental image of mixing caramel candy and onions made her blanch. She ended up playing it safe by ordering what Max ordered.

“So how have you been liking it so far? I know it all seems difficult at first but once you get the hang of it, you’ll have way more fun.” Max said as she idly fiddled with her straw, it didn’t escape her attention that El clearly wasn’t having a great time. She had hardly said anything in the arcade and when she did her soft-spoken voice was easily drowned out by the chorus of 8-bit tones coming from the machines. That and people who are having a great time usually don’t accidentally break three machines.

“It’s…fun. I really like it.” El responded, avoiding eye contact with Max. She didn’t want to admit that she didn’t really understand the appeal. The rest of the party and Max especially clearly liked going to the arcade judging by how much they talked about it, she just didn’t want to ruin the fun. Max squinted at her, El had made great strides in improving her communication skills, but she was a terrible liar.

“You know it’s okay if you don’t like it.”

“I do! It’s just…” El trailed off, Max could see right through her. She knew she was lying, and friends don’t lie.

“I’m sorry, I just…don’t understand it.” She mumbled as she looked back up at Max.

“And that’s okay. Maybe you just need more time to practice. And if you still don’t like playing videogames after that, that’s fine too. It’s not for everyone.” Max was a bit disappointed that El wasn’t enjoying one of her favorite pastimes, but she also didn’t want to subject El to hours of discomfort in the hope that’d they eventually grow on her.

“If you want to just hang out and wait for everyone else to come before we go back in, I’m fine with that.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t wanna ruin your night.” El whispered, she knew how excited Max was about this day and she felt disappointed in herself that she couldn’t live up to her expectations.

“As long as I’m spending time with you, I don’t really care what we do.” The words tumbled out of Max’s mouth before she thought about it. She wanted to hit herself for saying something so dumb. _Way to go Max you’re playing it as cool as ice,_ she thought. _You’re totally not being obvious that you’re head over heels for this girl._ Thankfully, the waitress came by with their burgers before El could respond and after that they ate mostly in silence.

After they finished eating and payed, they agreed to wait outside for Mike and the rest of the party to show up. They sat down on the curb on the side of the arcade, El peered into the window and was relieved to see that the moody teenager had managed to get the three machines back in working order, she would have felt awful if she had broken them beyond repair. Max tapped her on the shoulder.

“Look, there’s a cat over there.” Max whispered. El turned around, there was a brown Tabby cautiously sauntering in their direction. El’s eyes widened, she had never seen a cat walking around on the street before. Just on tv or in the windows of houses and in the cages Papa would bring to her when he wanted her to…

“What’s it doing out here?” El blurted out, she didn’t want her mind going there, not tonight.

“Sometimes people let their cats walk around the neighborhood…either that or it’s a stray.

“Stray?”

“Like, it doesn’t have an owner, or it did but it ran away. We might be able to get it to come over here if it isn’t feral.” Max explained as she opened her backpack up and sifted through the leftovers she had from the diner. she pulled the meat out of her remaining half of burger with a napkin. She tore a piece out and tossed it at the cat. It jumped when the piece first landed, until it cautiously sniffed at the meat.

“Feral?”

El didn’t know much about cats, just that they hissed when they were mad and that they preferred to eat Frisky Bitz (according to the commercial). But judging by how the cat eagerly consumed the piece of burger Max threw at it, El was beginning to doubt that.

“Feral cats aren’t like stray cats; a stray cat used to belong to someone. A feral cat was born in the wild, so they run away from humans when they get close. They’re basically wild animals at that point, like squirrels and racoons. It probably won’t get much closer if it’s feral.”

“Feral.” El echoed and watched as the cat took a few more cautious steps towards them. El was about to get up and walk towards the cat to go pet it but Max grabbed her shoulder and gently pushed her back down.

“Wait wait, if you do that it’s gonna run away. I’m gonna show you how you get a cat to come up to you.” Max began dropping pieces of burger in a pile in front of their feet as the cat stared at them with it’s wide brown eyes.

“Okay, first we gotta make eye contact with it, don’t say anything.” Max whispered as she looked up at the tabby. El stared at it too. After a few moments of intense eye contact with the cat, El was starting to feel a bit silly. They must have looked ridiculous, two girls having a staring contest with a cat.

“What do we- “El was interrupted by a shush from Max.

“Okay, now look away” Max whispered after another moment. The two girls both turned to face each other, pretending they were ignoring the cat.

“What are we doing?” El giggled, Max tried to shush her but they both end up devolving into stifled giggles.

“If I remember correctly, it’s like a non-threatening gesture. Like, we acknowledged it and now we’re pretending we don’t really care what it does.” Max whispered, she had just realized how close their faces were, El was trying to get a good look at the cat through the corner of her eyes. And Max couldn’t help but admire how pretty she looked in the orange afternoon sun. Max’s eyes darted away when El’s eyes met her own.

“I don’t think that’s gonna work on me too.” El laughed, which spurred Max into another fit of nervous giggles. Max’s eyes met El’s again, she felt her mouth go dry. She could kiss El right now if she really wanted, nobody would see them, besides the cat. But she couldn’t do that to El, springing something like that on her, she wasn’t even sure if El knew what a queer was, what would she do? Would she hit Max? She’d deserve it, if she were to kiss her she’d be cheating on Lucas and El would be cheating on Mike. The familiar dark feeling of shame twisted up in her guts.

El was the one to break eye contact as she stared at the cat that was now at their feet. It worked and the tabby was still eyeing them both cautiously as it ate the beef scraps off the street. El reached out her hand to pet it and the cat immediately hissed at her. El pulled her hand away as if it burned, she wondered incredulously if it somehow knew what she’d done to the other members of it’s kind.

“No, you gotta reach behind it, he probably thought you were trying to steal his food.” Max said softly. El was looking at the cat as if it was about to run up and bite her.  
El nodded and reached her shaking hand back out to pet the tabby, this time reaching over it’s head instead of straight for it. The cat looked up at El’s hand for a moment before stretching it’s head up to push against her palm, El scratched behind it’s ears and was delighted as it began to purr through mouthfuls of food. Max reached out as well and soon they were both petting the spoiled cat.

Max reached for it’s neck and turned the collar she felt tucked in it’s fur around so she could see if there was a tag, there was a flat metal heart engraved with a name and an address.

“Jasper, she lives just down the street. Probably not a stray then.” Max said as she resumed running her palm down the cat’s soft back.

“Jasper.” El echoed as she patted the tabby’s head. They were in a peaceful silence for a few minutes as they sat there. They were so enraptured by Jasper they didn’t even notice Will and Dustin turn the corner and walk up to them.

“Is that a cat!?” Dustin exclaimed as he ran up to them. Startling all three of them on the curb, Jasper looked like she was going to run away until Dustin kneeled down and tickled her furry chin.

“Hey guys.” Will said softly as he sat down next to Max on the curb

“I hope you guys weren’t waiting too long” Dustin said as he casually scooped up Jasper and placed her in his lap. She only started purring louder as Dustin started massaging her ears and cheeks. Dustin always had a way with animals, he was still mourning the loss of his orange tabby to Dart, so neither of the girls minded as Dustin unintentionally turned Jasper’s full attention to himself.

“No, it’s fine.” El said as she shared a knowing glance with Max. If she had it her way they’d stay outside with Jasper until dark. But that’d be rude, the rest of the party were just as excited as Max was about introducing her to the arcade, so she’d suck it up and humor them for now.

Mike and Lucas turned the corner next. El got up and greeted Mike with a hug and a peck on the cheek. Max tried to hide her jealousy as she stood up and greeted Lucas in a similar fashion. Max wasn’t really listening as the boys started counting up their quarter total. Dustin got up and placed Jasper on the ground as he joined the conversation. Max watched Jasper as she sauntered away, her tail up straight and swaying back and forth. She was the real winner of the night, a belly full of hamburger meat and a good massage from multiple teenagers fawning over her. She stopped and turned to stare at Max for a long moment with those big brown eyes of hers before she turned the corner and disappeared from sight. Max didn’t know why but she suddenly felt that dark feeling of shame in her stomach double in intensity as she squeezed Lucas’ hand tighter.

**Author's Note:**

> Who doesn't love a good cat metaphor? Sorry for the angst ending, I promise the next installment will end on a high note :)
> 
> Leave a kudos or a comment if you liked it, or if you have any suggestions on how I can improve my writing


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